Falling Slowly
by Mia-Zeklos
Summary: There was always something strange about Ianto; something that always remained hidden, and Jack is determined to find what it is once and for all.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes: Okay, first of all, this was meant to be a character study one shot, but then it got completely out of control. I know that it's not the best thing in the world, but I had nearly forty degrees Celsius temperature by the time I wrote the first chapter, so... you can imagine. There will be a second one, of course, and much longer at that, from Ianto's point of view, and it's already written in a notebook, so I'll post it as soon as possible.**

**The song in the beginning is _Falling Slowly_ by _The Frames_.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and, just like always, feedback is most appreciated! (:**

_I don't know you but I want you all the more for that_  
_Words fall through me and always fool me and I can't react_

_And games that never amount to more than they're meant_  
_Will play themselves out_

Jack wondered if Ianto had changed since the Lisa accident, or if it had been just him never truly noticing the young man at all. As he stood in front of Ianto's flat, nine days since the start of his suspension, he recalled the first time they had seen each other under these circumstances – eight days ago, also here.

Ianto had opened the door and his eyes had been full of heart-breaking sorrow, which had quickly taken anger's place mere hours after he had left the Hub. When he had seen Jack, he had just sighed and let him in, exhausted confusion clouding those bright blue irises as his boss – not very successfully – tried to explain what exactly he was doing there.

This was not the man he had seen through the last few months. In the Hub, Ianto was all smiles and subtle jokes and dry, comfortable sarcasm. Whenever Jack actually paid attention to him, his eyes seemed to be just the same – not that easy to read, but pleasantly open nonetheless, and the Captain often found himself – especially in the more quiet days – trying to find an excuse to call Ianto up in his office, just so he cou7ld hear him talk. It was usually rather refreshing.

All of this was a not-too-small part of the reason Jack had been so furious when things ended up the way they did. Ianto's presence had brought something new to the Hub; something Jack seemed to need as the days went on. Ianto was a quiet support that never left his side and, all of a sudden, the man seemed to despise him; the calm, patiently amused blue eyes filled with hate that overwhelmed everything else.

By the time, it'd felt like a much-needed slap on the face, reminding Jack that he should have noticed something. Anything. He shouldn't have hired Ianto just to look right through him after that, or trying to work his way beneath a mask that had turned out to be so much thicker than he had expected.

He wasn't stupid; he knew that Ianto was still hiding something. His whole CV – or, the one he'd been able to find in Torchwood One's database, combined with everything Mainframe had managed to find about him – was either entirely made up or robbed from some really necessary details.

Jack was in no hurry to find out, though. After all, he had a lot of secrets of his own. In Torchwood, privacy was an unknown concept, but he decided – hoped – that he would get what he needed from Ianto himself because the man chose to tell him, and not because Jack had carefully filed every word away and tried to get eight when Ianto gave him two and two.

If had less to do with essential information and more with getting to know Ianto, and Jack knew it. And the thought was enough to finally make him knock.

Ianto got to the door before he did it again and, while he looked extremely tired, he also seemed more at peace with himself. As he took in Jack – just like he had every other night since the start of his suspension – standing in front of his door an shifting from foot to foot just for the sake of doing something while the young man gave a sigh of resignation and leaned against the doorframe.

"You were supposed to come tomorrow night, sir," he pointed out softly. Jack raised an eyebrow.

"Do you think I've got a schedule?"

"I was sensing a pattern, yes."

"Let's say I decided to break the habit, then," Jack tried tentatively. He had always failed to understand people's need to put everything into boxes with little explanation stickers on them. Ianto's affinity for such things was even greater and should have came as no surprise that he'd managed to see some sort of pattern even in his visits.

The man in question didn't answer and just stepped back to let Jack enter. The Captain had a very bad feeling that, if he hadn't been as flawless in being a host as in everything else, he'd already have shut the door in his face by now.

"I wasn't expecting guests," Ianto pointed out and Jack realised that this was nearly worse than slamming the door. He was trying to chase him off politely.

Not that the lack of preparation made any difference. Ianto's flat was unnaturally clean anyway and Jack could imagine why – he'd been trying to busy himself with something that didn't need much thought, just to distract himself from his own mind and cleaning was, in Jack's opinion, a much safer option than many other things that had surely passed through the young man's head – which was one of the main reasons Jack had taken his gun as well. Not that he would be surprised if the man had another one somewhere around.

"I just wanted to check on you." Jack's voice was unintentionally gentle. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Ianto assured him, and he sounded sincere. It wouldn't be for the first time, though, and Jack didn't move from where he was. "I'm trying to remember her from before. For who she was. It's helping."

The sentences were short and definite and Jack knew that Ianto wasn't willing to give anything else away, but it was still something. It was a start.

"Would you like something to drink, sir?" he asked, rummaging through his airing cupboard. Jack shook his head in vague negative response as he took a peek at the living room from the view the kitchen's door gave him.

There was some subtle change in it, and he had yet to figure out what it was. Some things that were just not where they had been the last time.

There'd been a vase in the middle of the table, now that he came to think of it. A large vase with flowers on it, he was sure of it. It was suddenly missing and he had a fairly good idea why.

It had been Lisa's. It only made sense, of course. It didn't look like something Ianto would buy, and he had got rid of it not because it didn't bring back good memories, but because it did. Because looking at it and expecting her to come through the door any minute would have been too painful. Jack knew – he'd been in the same position all too often.

"No. No, Ianto, thank you," he managed after a while, remembering that he'd been offered a drink at some point. "It's okay. I just wanted to ask how're you feeling."

Ianto, who seemed to have ignored him and kept looking for something in his cupboard, shrugged and narrowly avoided Jack's eyes once again.

"I told you, sir. Better."

"'Better' is not good enough if you want to be back at work soon," Jack stated and tried to keep going as fast as he could before the other man could interrupt him. "I want to be sure that you're completely all right before I can let you got back to work."

"What do you expect?" The lack of 'sir' by the end of the sentence was the only thing that matched the barely noticeable flames burning in those blue eyes. "Do you think I can just get over it and act like it never happened? I might not blame you any longer, but she's still gone. And I can't just go on with my life like she was never there." He slammed a bottle on the counter and Jack flinched. "I just can't, Jack."

"I know." The Captain lowered his voice. "I know, but I need to be sure that you're psychically ready to get back to the Hub." Especially since she won't be there any longer, he added mentally. He might have as well said it out loud, considering that it stood out in the silence between them anyway. "Do you think one month will be enough?" He asked tentatively.

Another long moment, and Ianto nodded.

**o.O.o**

Many months later for Ianto and nearly two years for Jack, he tried asking him out in the office that they had had to go through. Emphasis on _tried_. Jack had expected to smoothly pose the question and get a simple 'yes' or 'no'. Well, better yes that no. What he actually got was Ianto – for the first time since Lisa – ignoring him as much as he could – and avoiding even looking him in the eyes. And that made things even harder.

Which eventually led him to the though that, despite the months they had spent together, he still barely knew the man at all.

He had supposed that Ianto would be more angry that anything else, but it was much, much worse. He looked tired and pale and tense and Jack wasn't sure how he was supposed to make him open up again – if he'd ever done it at all. These brilliant blue eyes were cold and distant now and his whole face even harder to read than usual – considering that the 'usual' level had still been impossible.

Jack seemed to have forgotten how it had been once. A year of torture and nothing else to distract you could really twist your view on people and what the Captain remembered as an easy arrangement neither of them had given much thought to suddenly turned into something way more tender and careful that he wasn't completely sure he could deal with.

And, what was even worse, it wasn't Ianto who was putting all that much effort into it. Yes, Ianto was the one who could be trusted to organise the dates, because he was just good at things like that, but Jack was usually the one who tried to initiate the event in the first place. He kept trying to make Ianto say something – something actually important to him, not just banter and bickering – but to no avail. The most he could get out of him was – and that was quite rarely – a university memory or some anecdote from Torchwood One – meaning, nothing before the age of twenty.

Not that Jack could blame him – after all, Jack himself had barely told him anything about his past – but it should have been _easier_ with Ianto. It should have been easier to access information about him, and not just old police reports of shoplifting or information about chess tournaments – and even those were low-detailed and kind of suspicious.

Jack knew that he was being paranoid at times, such as this one, but he couldn't help it.

He was in front of Toshiko's workstation, his fingers hovering over the keyboard as he tried to discourage himself. This was beyond stupid. Ianto hadn't done anything that could possibly deserve mistrust. And yet, just last night on the way back to Ianto's flat, they'd met a friend of his – Rhydian or something like that – and afterwards, when asked, Ianto had been as vague as always – 'I met him when we were six' – but it had made Jack realise that this way, quite literally, the only thing he'd ever heard about his lover's childhood.

The replay of last night's scene in his mind was enough to make him decide. He tentatively slid his hands over the buttons, typing _Ianto Jones_ and looking through Mainframe's database once again. The sentient system of the Hub had improved its qualities lately, mostly with Tosh's coaxing; maybe it would show something new. Maybe.

No such luck. Just the bloody chess again. Not even school records, and that was absolutely ridiculous. He tried poking around One's archives again. Still nothing.

He tried setting it on a wider range – which, in their case, meant off planet, and then out of the galaxy. Still nothing – which should have been expected; Jack wasn't sure what he'd been thinking. What would Ianto do in outer space?

And yet, just to make sure... Intergalactic search didn't sound so bad.

There! A trace! To someone far, far away, that name meant something. One more result slowly crawled into existence and Jack, not even realising he'd been holding his breath, clicked on it.

Classified. There was a tiny sign next to the word – one that was well known to Earth and nearly every other person in the universe as 'danger'.

"Classified by who?" Jack asked in disbelief. Nothing was classified to Torchwood.

Ianto appeared on the stars to his office with a mop in his hand and an expression that was much more amused than it was supposed to. If he only had the faintest idea what Jack was doing, he'd have been decidedly less smug, he was sure of it, and for a moment the Captain contemplated showing him what he'd found, but pushed the thought as far as he could. Ianto's eyes seemed as innocent as always; he apparently didn't suspect a thing.

"Are you having access issues, Jack?" He asked mildly.

Jack gritted his teeth.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's notes: Like I said, I really did not intend this fic to go this way, but it sort of happened. In the show itself and in the books there is always this pointedly mysterious way of handling Ianto's past, so I decided that there was really something going on there and went with my favourite theory.**

**This'll probably be the last chapter, since it's a prequel to another story of mine) which I'll mention a few sentences below). **

_**References to other things here**_**: The first quote is from **_**The Sin Eaters**_**, the second one is from **_**The Twilight Streets**_**. The song is still **_**Falling Slowly**_**. The part with the anti-retcon pill and Ianto being in another body is from Almost Perfect, when he was turned into a woman overnight and had no memories whatsoever about what had happened, so Jack gave him some pill that was supposed to make him remember.**

**Also, the end of this story is a bit of a reference to my other one, **_**Eyes as Old as Time**_**. It can be read by itself, but still, in case you want to read the other one, I won't spoil it for you and just say that when Ianto closes the Rift in **_**House of the Dead**_**, he eventually meets Jack again much, much later than he intended.**

**Anyway. I hope you like it and, of course, I'd like to know what you think. (:**

_~'"No need to be scared, Mr Deep-sea Diver. As long as they don't touch you, they can't do a thing. And we're clean on that front. Besides, what sins have you got for them to feed off?"_

_Ianto chose not to answer that.'_

"_So much noise in your head. And so many histories tell us that, in your brief Torchwood career, they always thought you were the quiet one. The one who would say 'boo' to a goose. I wonder if they ever knew you, Ianto. I wonder if Jack Harkness ever knew you."~_

_Falling slowly, eyes that know me and I can't go back_

_Moods that take me and erase me and I'm painted black_

_You have suffered enough and warred with yourself_

_It's time that you won_

Jack was being positively odd last days and Ianto wasn't sure what to make from it. After all, he had his days of general oddity every once in a while, but this was something else. And it was, apparently, all directed at him. Weird questions and accusing glances even if they were doing something completely ordinary – like having dinner, as it was tonight.

Ianto was fiddling with his fork and poking his food with it – it was something Jack had made and while it was certainly more edible than anything he himself had ever cooked, Ianto wasn't sure he could eat with Jack's eyes locked on him.

"Is everything all right?" he managed at last, unsure if it had been a good idea when the Captain's gaze only intensified.

"Remember that friend of yours we met the other night?" Jack asked and Ianto nodded hesitantly. "Rhydian, wasn't it?" Another nod. "Tell me about him."

It was so close to an order that Ianto felt fairly confused as to what exactly was expected from him. He hadn't said anything particular about the guy, mostly because he was as uninterested in the whole thing as Jack. Or, as it turned out, way more uninterested than him.

"Err… we played football together. You know, before rugby and school came along. We sort of lost touch in high school." He shrugged, some part of his brain realising that he was acting as if he were hiding something – which had obviously what Jack had expected, if his narrowed eyes were anything to go by.

"Why are you asking?" Ianto insisted, vaguely insulted, as if he was being interrogated without knowing what crime he was accused in. Usually Jack was nothing like this. He was all laughter and toothy smiles and playful grins, especially when he was at Ianto's place. Nothing as tense and careful as right now.

Finally, the man's eyes focused on the food in his plate and then back at Ianto, a small, rather plastic-looking smile playing on his lips. "Just curiosity, that's all."

Sure thing.

**o.O.o**

The sun slowly carved its way into Ianto's eyes, even through his shut eyelids and for a moment, he could just lie there, absolutely unaware of the world around him.

Just for a moment.

Then it all came to him with the usual cruel, cold force of unwanted truths attacking a still fragile mind.

Owen and Tosh, dead. Gray and everything he had done. John, Ianto remembered trying to attack him at some point. Half the city being blown up. Jack buried alive.

Jack!

Ianto's eyes snapped open as he sat up and stared at the sleeping face of the man next to him – still partly covered in dirt and so, so tired.

Ianto had a moment to contemplate his possibilities – letting him sleep and pushing his own worry aside or waking him up to check on him – before Jack stirred minutely and, not without some effort, opened his eyes. Ianto could see it happening to him too – the merciful lack of memories of _where_ and _when_, quickly followed by heart-wrenching sorrow as he took a sudden, sharp breath.

"I know," Ianto murmured, gently resting his hand on Jack's shoulder.

And just then, he realised that he knew in more ways than he could imagine; in more ways than he was supposed to. He could_ see_.

_Darkness everywhere. Scared and alone and cold and is someone ever going to find me? and life and death and life again and–_

"Ianto!"

He felt as if he was the one being dragged back to the surface and Jack had to shake him a few more times for him to come back to his senses.

"What was that?" Jack asked, one eyebrow raised, and for an instant, the haunted look had left his face.

"I haven't done anything," Ianto hurried to assure him. "I don't know what that was and I'm sorry–"

"It's all right," Jack said quietly, raising his hands in surrender. "It's fine. You were one of the experiments in Torchwood One, right? The whole 'each of us has a repressed psychic side' thing?"

Ianto nodded slowly.

"Yes," He said, unsure. "But I've never really tried anything; not outside the training room." It had always seemed so incredibly intrusive; looking at someone's bare soul like it was a book for you to read. It was wrong and he had never done it; not even with the people that he'd wanted – or needed – to read the most.

Jack gave him one of his rare smiles.

"Top of your class, weren't you?" Then reality seemingly fell on his shoulders again. "You've repressed it, but when someone's feelings are too intense – including your own, I suppose – it probably comes up again."

"Did it–" Ianto had a hard time finishing a sentence when he was afraid to hear the answer. "Did it really feel like this?"

Just about then he realised that he didn't need an answer. "Let's get you cleaned up, shall we?" he asked softly, gently bringing Jack to his feet and leading him into the bathroom.

"It's so strange," Jack mumbled as Ianto carefully rinsed his hair. "I've forgotten what your touch feels like, but I never forgot your eye colour."

Ianto knew that he was meant to be flattered, but instead, he felt shock and complete lack of comprehension silently settle somewhere deep inside him.

How could anyone survive being buried alive for nearly two thousand years? Not physically – he had long since stopped asking questions about the way Jack's immortality worked – but mentally. The fact that Jack was capable of the simplest of things right now was unbelievable.

"And your hair." Jack still sounded just as quietly amazed at every detail. "I couldn't remember what it felt like under my fingers, but I knew just the way you always wear it" – at this, he weakly gestured at his lover's hair where it had curled around his ears with a trembling hand until Ianto caught it, "with these– things and–" His voice died. "Ianto, I–"

"Shhh," Ianto murmured, taking Jack in his embrace and bringing him closer. "It's okay, Jack. Calm down. You'll be all right." He had a fairly good idea what it was that Jack wanted to tell him and he knew that, in his current state, it wouldn't be the wisest thing to do.

Or so he thought. But, as another surge of emotions came from Jack, Ianto felt something warm, gentle and frenetic all at the same time; something that was burning so brightly that it nearly blinded him to anything else.

**o.O.o**

The devastation after Gwen and Tosh's death was enough to keep Ianto away from that seemingly endless game that Jack insisted on playing and that consisted of sudden (and, if you didn't read too much into it, random but Ianto couldn't be fooled) questions when he least expected it. And yet, he was reminded of it again a few days after Jack had given him the pill that was meant to bring back repressed/stolen/wiped/all of the above memories.

He was just getting out of his bathroom, irrationally peeved by the fact that he couldn't figure out how to wrap a towel around his new – and accidentally woman's – body (which he wouldn't have bothered with, had Jack been introduced to the concept of personal space and to the idea that breaking into people's flats was not anyone's idea of good manners), when he felt it. A tingle in the back of his mind, like he'd been in the middle of something and had forgotten what he'd been doing.

Ianto desperately tried to focus on that and hold on, hoping that it would give him a clue what had happened to him. Closing his eyes, he sat on the edge of his bed, trying not to wince when the long wet hair plastered itself against his back.

This wasn't the memory he was looking for, that was for sure. This was and old one, though not that old – probably just three years from now. And yet, Ianto let himself dwell into it.

"_Give me a hand here, will you?" The voice was feminine and more than slightly irritated. Ianto felt as if he was being dragged on the ground._

'_Why?" This time it was a man, he could tell, but there was something off about the way the said the words – as if it wasn't actually English, but he was programmed to hear it that way._

"_Because he's too tall and bloody uncomfortable to carry?"The woman offered, voice laced with impatience. The man snorted._

"_That's not what I meant. You can't just wait for him to finally collapse from exhaustion and do what you want! He's a grown man!"_

"_He's barely a man at all," she hissed as Ianto tried to move and open his eyes. "He can't lead a war."_

"_Yes, he can." There was a touch of pride in the man's voice; one he apparently could hide despite his efforts. "I've seen him. He's born with it! If there's someone here who can win this war–"_

"– _that someone is not him." The woman finished his sentence and unceremoniously pulled Ianto up, throwing his hand over her shoulder. "He's your son. You can't tell me you want to watch him fight. He's too young for this and too young to realise it, but I'm not going to see him die!"_

"_He's not dying. It's just an injury. He'll be all right."_

"_I know," the woman said softly. "For now. And I won't let it happen again, and I can never do this while he's awake. So help me, will you?"_

_Ianto felt someone else take his other hand and tried to offer some kind of resistance. There was something wrong. He shouldn't be here. He was supposed to be in the hospital near the Headquarters, or if the wound had been fatal, he should have... should have... what? What should he have done? He tried to think, but his whole being felt too tired for that._

"_Besides, there's no going back now," the woman continued. "I've re-set his memories and provided him with all sorts of documents these people seem to need; no one will even realised he'd just popped out of nowhere. The perception filter should work perfectly."_

"_I'll work all right, mostly because even he'll be fooled by it." Despite his already calmer voice, the accusation note in the man's tone was still visible._

"_That's the only way," she whispered as Ianto tried opening his eyes again. "No one can see through it if he can't. I'm sending him to Earth, the early twenty-first century. Seems uneventful enough." He was suddenly brought somewhere indoors and there were all sorts of noises that he thought he would have recognised once._

"_Okay." The man said and there was a sigh of resignation. "Give me the coordinates."_

"_United Kingdom. Torchwood One in London." The woman was so close that Ianto could hear her hold her breath, dreading the man's reaction. And apparently, she had a reason._

"_Oh, that's just about right. We don't want anything to trigger his memories, so we're sending him to work with a Time Lord-hunting organisation. What about Torchwood is ever _uneventful_?"_

"_That's the best place for him to be!" She gently lowered Ianto on the floor and he finally managed to open his eyes, just enough to see through his eyelashes._

_From the commanding tone of the woman's voice, the least thing he had expected was someone about five feet five inches tall, with curly ginger hair (two strands of it were held up from both sides and meeting in the middle on the back of her head, making her look a bit like a fairy) and dark blue eyes. The man was very much like Ianto himself, although he was more the broad-shouldered type and his dark hair was sticking in all kinds of angles that Ianto would never permit on his own hair._

_He tried taking in his surroundings through his lowered lashes – and there was a lot to take in – but there wasn't much that he could manage without moving, aside from something that looked like a control panel with lots of pulsing lights. He had known what this place was called, he was certain of it, but he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything, not even his own name. And he was falling, everything was taken away from his, and only two things managed to stick around, slowly becoming true as he fell._

_Name: Ianto Jones. Destination: Torchwood._

With a gasp, Ianto came back into his body – or, well, what passed for it these days – feeling completely drained.

His whole life. His family and friends and everyone he knew were nothing more than a cover story. People who didn't really know him or remember him at all, but had been fooled to think so.

Of course, he knew what a perception filter was. He'd spent enough time in One to figure out that it was technology that worked solely with people's minds – including how own, because people lie best if they believe what they're saying.

All of a sudden, this body felt even more wrong on him. It wasn't just that the body hated him; now his whole being was desperately trying to get out of it, not only because it wasn't his, but because it was human.

And he wasn't.

_And_ he was just realising that.

He had to report that to Jack immediately, he knew that. There might have been a pamphlet if your body is suddenly _not_ your body, but Ianto seriously doubted he'd find in the archives _A Guide for the Torchwood Operative that Just Found Out that They're a Possibly Dangerous Alien_.

No. He couldn't tell Jack, not yet. He'd think that the stress of Ianto's new body was too much and he was going crazy, or dump him in a cell. He could wait. He would tell him the second he was back in his body.

It was only a few days later that he woke up and he could _feel_ that he was back – just like the Perfection had promised. Jack was lying next to him, breathing slow and even, enjoying a rare and long since deserved rest.

The last couple of days had been hell, complete and utter hell, but Ianto had managed to repress it all somehow, hoping that he would get his answers once he got to how he was before.

And, when it happened, he wasn't sure if he was relieved or terrified.

His head – now that the perception filter was down, at least for him – was full of memories from a life he was just getting to know – a world so unknown and yet so familiar, that it didn't feel as faraway as it should.

Now he knew that the last people he'd seen before waking up as Ianto Jones, with the memories of a man that had never actually existed, had been his parents. Their ship was called a TARDIS, but that was more logic than actual memories – after all, that was what the Doctor's ship had been called.

Ianto grimaced. The Doctor. If he had to end up as some sort of an alien, was it really necessary to be the same as _the Doctor_? Jack would bloody love this.

The thought made him glance at the Captain, who was currently snoring quietly on the other side of the bed. He'd promised to himself that he'd tell him as soon as he could, but right now the idea did not seem very appealing. He had no idea how Jack would react. Would it really make a difference for him, on a personal level? Would he call the Doctor? He could remember Jack telling him once that the Time Lord was the last of his kind and, while Ianto could guess how exciting it would be for both of them to find someone else (the Doctor because he was alone, and Ianto because he needed someone to explain what the hell was happening to him), he rather preferred the idea of keeping the man away. Last he'd seen him, there had been Daleks everywhere. And the time before that, more Dalek and a Cybermen bonus, which was a completely different kind of memory for Ianto – the Daleks were as any other alien deciding to invade, but Cybermen took everything away.

Ianto liked to think that he wasn't as superstitious as everyone else from his (currently proved to be unreal) family, but he thought he had the right to think that the Doctor meant trouble.

Daleks. There was something about Daleks in his newly found memories as well, and Ianto was pretty sure the reason he'd been sent here had something to do with them – at the mere thought of Daleks, a long-forgotten and non-existed for his human consciousness until now shiver ran through him and his heart started racing.

Oh god. His heart.

It was more than racing; it was barely pausing at all. Behind its usual beat, he could hear something like an echo too. This definitely had to be checked once he got to the Hub.

Speaking of which... He gently touched Jack's shoulder to wake him, the already mad thumping in his chest speeding up even more in apprehension. Now that the perception filter was lifted off him, would Jack feel it too? Would he sense that something was different? What if...

But, as Jack finally opened his eyes and gave him a tight hug, whispering that he'd missed him, nothing seemed to be different. Not for Jack, that is. Ianto could feel time stumbling over itself and then stopping the moment his lover touched him.

And, for the first time in days, Ianto found peace.

**o.O.o**

Jack was calling for him, and Ianto felt like he was falling asleep after a long, long day and someone was trying to keep him awake. He had to stay, though, just for a while longer. Just long enough to do what he had to, because he needed to stitch up a piece of events that would matter one day, and he had to do it now.

"Don't forget me," he managed at last. Don't, because one day, it's going to save your life, he added mentally, but didn't have the right or the breath left to say it out loud.

He could barely hear Jack's assurances through all the noise and possibilities racing through his mind. There was one point in time, though; a long time from now, but it seemed firmly fixed in the chaos of thoughts and feelings and time that was currently deafening him.

Through the past months, he had recalled most of the details of his life on Gallifrey. He had remembered the war, the pain and the deaths, and he could almost understand why his mother had wanted him to forget it all.

And here he was, dying in a war anyway, far away from home with the only person in his life on this planet who he'd truly known – not someone who was just a play of the perception filter and who he'd thought he'd spend his life with, like it happened to be in the most cases. Jack was real, and it wasn't just that – he always topped the constant noise in Ianto's head with a single touch and, despite the fact that it'd felt a bit unnatural at first, he had grown to love it. Jack wasn't wrong; he was the only relief in a world where the whole universe was spinning in Ianto's mind. Jack didn't silence his demons; he silenced the whole of creation.

And it was a bliss.

"A thousand years time? You won't remember me." It was cruel to say it, but it had to stick in Jack's mind. It would lead the something that would help them meet again one day.

He could see too clearly what had to happen now and couldn't say anything more as he focused on resisting the regeneration. He had to die here. It would pay off later.

Ianto wished he could tell Jack that this was not a final goodbye and that a long time would pass before he'd actually have to give in to the darkness, but he only had the power to close his eyes and finally fall asleep as silence took him.


	3. The Sequel

**Hello there! **

**For those of you**** who asked me to continue this or followed the story, I'd like you to know that there is a sequel (well, technically, this is a prequel to the other story, since the other one is written first, but...) and it's called **_**Eyes as Old as Time**_**. I'm currently working on a sequel for that one, too, so feel free to read it. I hope you enjoy it as much as you did with this one. (:**


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